Australia Felix is a novel by Henry Handel Richardson, the pseudonym used by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, (3 January 1870 - 20 March 1946) who was an Australian author. She took the name "Henry Handel" because at that time, many people did not take women's writing seriously, so she used a male name. Australia Felix is without question Henry Handel Richardson's most important work, and Richard Mahony, a complex portrayal of Richardson's own father, is the first substantial character in Australian fiction. Richardson's brilliant analysis of human inadequacy, of the gulf between the ideal and achievement, and of the complexities of circumstance, environment and human fraility, make her one of Australia's most distinguished novelists…(wikipedia.org)